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Australian citizenship and visa waiting times could increase

Posted on May 25th, 2017

Department secretary Mike Pezzullo told Senate Estimates that he would give no guarantee that waiting times would not increase with the recent cuts from the immigration department’s visa and citizenship departments

He stated, “Due to the cuts some applicants may have to wait longer” even though this was an aggregated view. And followed up in saying that “You don’t want anyone to have to wait for government decisions than is absolutely not more than required.

He said that it is not just due to the department cuts but rapid growth in all categories of visa applications contribute to a bigger impact on waiting times.

The immigration department needs to make savings of nearly $1 billion dollars in savings over the next four years.